Physical media is no longer at the heart of home entertainment. But it hasn’t disappeared from the scene either. In Italia, 4K Blu-ray is showing signs of holding its own in a video market that has now been reshaped by streaming and digital platforms. In 2025, according to NIQ data presented in Rome during the fifth leg of the global roadshow organised by the Deg, over 200,000 4K Blu-ray units were sold, worth more than €5 million.
This figure should be viewed in the right context: it is a niche market, but one that is growing. Globally, the home entertainment sector exceeded $350 billion in revenue in 2025. In Italia, total spending is forecast to exceed $5 billion by 2029. The focus remains on digital: streaming is now the dominant segment of the video market and, in Italia, has overtaken pay TV in terms of revenue and subscriptions. But home consumption is not limited to subscriptions.
The digital transactional sector, encompassing online shopping and video on demand, recorded a 5% increase in transactions and an 8% rise in revenue in 2025. Catalogue films also rose by 4%, reaching their highest level in the last four years. Meanwhile, physical media found its strongest segment in 4K, with a 4 per cent increase.
“There is a need to continue investing in increasingly advanced and high-performance physical media, without losing sight of consumers’ needs,” explained Luciana Migliavacca, president of Univideo. For Migliavacca, the NIQ data indicate “significant vitality for 4K Blu-ray”, alongside the growth of transactional digital and streaming. Younger audiences, she adds, are looking for “exclusivity, personalisation, ease of access, varied price points and products that can be kept for the long term, because a film, by its very nature, has no expiry date”.
Liz Bales, CEO of Deg, described the Italian market as “extremely dynamic and innovative”, emphasising the value of dialogue between distributors, platforms, service providers and industry operators. Federico Bagnoli Rossi, President of the International Video Federation (IVF), noted that home entertainment continues to offer “a wide range of access and pricing options” and contributes to the sustainability of the film and audiovisual industry.